After multiple sell out shows across Australia in recent years, Damien Dempsey returns with his full band in November to play at Sydney Irish Festival as well as Perth. Dempsey’s voice is all Dublin, yet wholly distinctive. It’s almost clichéd to say it, but he is part of a rich bloodline of Irish singers from Luke Kelly to Ronnie Drew, Christy Moore to Andy Irvine. To describe Damien Dempsey’s music to someone who hasn’t yet been exposed to it would be to take some reggae, fuse it with traditional Irish music, add in rock and folk and put it all through a grounded working class worldly aware yet caring consciousness, and you’re some bit of the way there. Now, 17 years into an astonishing career, Damien Dempsey recently released his seventh studio album, Soulsun, and he doesn’t hesitate in identifying the most satisfying aspect of his career. “Seeing what the songs mean to people is mind-blowing,” he says. “People come up to me and say, ‘You saved my life.’ At the start, it was about saving my own life and healing myself. There’s music for everything; getting up and dancing having a good time, music to think deeply to…you name it, absolutely everything under the sun. There’s music for all situations, but my music is about healing and hope.”